Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) Vs Ford at Le Mans

For sure the Ford Vs Ferrari battles we have seen in recent times are not as iconic as the battles that took place back in the 1960’s, as pictured above.

AJ Baime detailed them beautifully in his book titled Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and their battle for speed and glory at Le Mans.

But the GTE Pro class is will give us some interesting racing this year.

Ford (NYSE:F) is bringing in four GTs, while Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) will bring in 3 488 GTE Evos.

Two Corvettes, 2 Porsche 911 RSRs, and 2 Aston Martin Vantage AMRs will compete, with the last of the group determined to defend their Y 2017 class win.

Making their return to the category is BMW, with BMW Team MTEK fielding 2 M8 GTEs in the championship.

In the GTE Am class, 13 cars will fight it out for Top honors, with Ferrari and Porsche making up most of the grid, with only two Aston Martin Vantages joining the grid.

Former Ferrari team driver, Fernando Alonso is the biggest name at Le Mans this year.

In fact, the F1 driver’s popularity seems very high, since he decided to go compete in the Y 2017 running of the Indy 500 in Y 2017.

Then, Mr. Alonso said that his focus, after a few bad seasons in F1, was on attempting to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport: Victory at the Monaco GP, Victory at the Indy 500 and Victory at the Le Mans 24.

He has 2 Monaco GP wins, none at the Brickyard or the Circuit de la Sarthe.

This year Mr. Alonso has Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi partnering him in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid this year at Le Mans.

So far this year, they won the season-opening round of the 2018/2019 Super Season: the 6 Hours of Spa.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nakajima has taken provisional Pole for the No.8 Toyota during Q1.

On the spraying of Champagne by the winners

The tradition of spraying Champagne on the podium at motorsport events began after Dan Gurney, who had just won the 1967 edition of the 24 hrs race with Texas team-mate AJ Foyt, decided to have a go pouring French Champagne over Henry Ford II, team owner Caroll Shelby, and several motorsports journalists who did not believe that Ford could win that year, and the rest is history.

Paul Ebeling

Paul A. Ebeling, polymath, excels in diverse fields of knowledge. Pattern Recognition Analyst in Equities, Commodities and Foreign Exchange and author of “The Red Roadmaster’s Technical Report” on the US Major Market Indices™, a highly regarded, weekly financial market letter, he is also a philosopher, issuing insights on a wide range of subjects to a following of over 250,000 cohorts. An international audience of opinion makers, business leaders, and global organizations recognizes Ebeling as an expert.